- A lot of people have their portrait taken, but Scott Audette of Lakeland knows how to make a photo session truly unforgettable.

Just add water.

(light music) - Hey, I'm Scott Audette and I'm an underwater portrait photographer here in Lakeland, Florida.

(upbeat music) Photography is what I've done my entire life.

I was probably in seventh or eighth grade when I picked up a camera.

And I had a teacher in middle school who had a dark room and showed me how to process and print my first black and white pictures.

And once the bug hit, it stuck with me my entire life.

(light rock music) So I've worked in primarily pro sports, but also in the news business.

So I've worked for the Reuters News service, the Associated Press News service, still do some work for the Tampa Bay Rays, I was with the Tampa Bay Lightning for 21 years.

And I've kinda covered and seen it all.

I've been to Super Bowl, I've been to the World Series, I've been to the Olympics.

You name it, I've probably have been there.

(light rock music) (light music) The underwater photography is an evolution of a relationship between me and my father.

He was a firefighter, but he fancied himself as a photographer with other water stuff.

And so really, I picked up a camera, the first underwater, just so that he and I had something in common to do.

And then, realized not too long into it that I really wanted to do more with it and explore further in the field and in the genre.

(light music) Underwater photography gives me the opportunity to create something that's not necessarily part of my everyday life as a sports photographer.

This allows me to go back to when I was a 13, 14-year-old kid who first picked up a camera, right?

That's where the excitement is, that's where the magic is and the passion is, creating something that you're thinking about in your head and then taking it and putting it, then on a piece of film, now we're putting it in a digital file.

So that's what drives me to do this.

- It's not as easy as it looks, because you've got a combination of artistic skill and technical skill that he's combining to create finished images that give him the product that he wants to have.

- I do the sets, I bring all the clothes, I pick out all the fabrics.

Like the makeup that Coral is wearing today, I picked out the makeup that I wanted her to wear, I helped her design the headpiece.

Like, that's part of the creative process.

It's not just what happens in the water.

95% of what I do happens on land before we ever touch the water.

(upbeat music) My pool in the backyard, it's the ideal location for this.

We keep it 90 degrees year-round.

(upbeat music) What we do underwater isn't like shooting a portrait above water.

Like, a lot of stuff has to be adapted and even sometimes created.

So we're using Canon series DSLRs still.

The downside to underwater photography is kind of the cost of entry.

The housings that you put these cameras in typically cost a lot more than the cameras do.

And then, we do something unique, which is where we're using strobes above water and in the water.

And then, we connect them with fiber optics and radio slaves and specially-made cables and boxes we've created.

And so, it's a little bit of a process, but it just kinda comes together now.

- Wow!

Being photographed underwater is very calming.

It's very relaxing.

You slip under the water and everything just goes away.

It's like meditation.

- Once you kinda get into it and you figure it out, it becomes pretty natural pretty quickly.

I mean, we were born in a sack of water.

- Deep breaths, you know?

Like you could work on breath work if you want to, especially in the professional space, you know, a lot of us are free dive certified and things like that.

But for just like your first time, just relax and trust yourself.

It's fun.

(upbeat music) - We're an Instagram-driven world, right?

And a TikTok-driven world.

And this really lends itself to that.

So we tend to see a lot of younger women.

But as my business has changed and to where I'm working to try to create more gallery-oriented stuff, I work with a lot of gay men and gay women.

And their openness tends to make this a lot easier in the water because they're trying to express themselves and this water is just another medium.

(upbeat music) So Born This Way is a really fun project that I started a year ago.

I had a 15-foot umbilical cord made that goes to a prosthetic belly button that goes to the person.

And the idea is basically that we're exploring how that, I feel like everybody's predestined to be who they are in life.

And so, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, I'm wanting to embrace part of that too and give them the opportunity to say, "Okay, this is who I am."

(upbeat music) - So Polk County, because we're wedged between Orlando and Tampa, right?

We don't necessarily get people thinking of us as an arts and cultural destination.

Scott's a perfect example of the type of creative artists and creative industries we have here in Polk County that maybe people in some of the larger urban areas around us that aren't aware of.

But his work's very creative.

He's thinking innovatively, outside the box, so to speak, or maybe inside the pool.

And the fact that he's here in Polk County lends credence to what we're trying to do at the Polk Arts and Cultural Alliance, which is make Polk County a destination for arts and culture.

- I like to say that a photograph isn't a photograph until you print it.

- As a photographer myself, I know the power of the printed image.

And to see his work blown up, he had an exhibit and there were some, you know, 10 by 20 banner-sized pieces, were just amazing to see that.

- All the pre-planning that went into it, from the makeup, the clothing, the backdrop, the lighting, the finding the right model, that's the culmination.

That for me is when I say, "Okay, this is something I'm proud of."

- Yeah, look at the reflections.

Awesome!

I'll put it on my birthday wall.

(light music) (gentle music) - [Announcer] See more at scottaudetteunderwater.com.